Super Smash Bros. Brawl is the reason to own a Wii. It will definitely be the first multiplayer game that consists of more than minigames. If you are even remotely a Smash Brothers fan and don’t own a Wii, start camping out.
First things first, if you don’t have a GameCube controller or Classic controller, go get one or four. The Wiimote controls are utterly useless. It is probably better with the nunchuk, which wasn’t available to try, but the Wiimote by itself might just be the worst excuse for a control scheme ever. Trying to play a fast-paced precision game like Brawl with a sideways Wiimote just won’t work.
The Classic controller was much better, but we think they perfected Smash Brothers on the GameCube controller and that’s how we’ll be playing it. Thankfully, there was no motion control tacked on.
Most of the attendees agreed and soon the Wii girls had attached Classic controllers to most, if not all, of the Wiimotes.
Sadly, not all of the announced characters were at the show. Snake wasn’t playable. This was probably to avoid stealing thunder from MGS4, but newcomers Pit, Diddy Kong, Ike, and Sonic were all playable at the show.
Sonic plays a lot like Yoshi and is very fast. We saw a lot of people spinning him right off the edge. His special attacks fit well and his vertical special causes as Sonic-style spring to appear and launch Sonic into the air.
Pit is the new ultimate character for making it back to the stage from a huge smash. He can triple (!) and fly. Very hard to kill, but we certainly didn’t master his offense after a few plays.
The game looks great running on the Wii and should be proof (along with Mario Galaxy) that Wii developers are just lazy. This system is capable of some great graphics with the right art style.
The biggest complaint we had with the game was that we could only play 2 minute matches at a time and only 1v1. It’s going to be great when this game finally releases and we can start learning the new characters. Hopefully it will ship with a competent online multiplayer mode.
